In March 2007, Microsoft released System Center Operations Manager (OpsMgr) 2007, developed under the codename Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM) V3. OpsMgr 2007 is completely re-architected and is a total rewrite from its MOM 2005 predecessor. In fact, it is so much of a rewrite that many longtime MOM 2005 administrators and fans feared the worst for the new version in terms of stability and performance—and there were definitely some early issues with the released to manufacturing (RTM) build. However, OpsMgr 2007 has come of age, as evidenced by Gartner Group's July 2009 Magic Quadrant for IT Event Correlation and Analysis report (https://h10078.www1.hp.com/bto/download/Gartner_Magic_Quadrant_IT_Event_Corr_Analysis.pdf), which, similar to their December 2007 report (http://mediaproducts.gartner.com/reprints/microsoft/vol10/article2and3/article2and3.html), places Operations Manager 2007 R2 firmly in the Challengers quadrant (see Figure 1.1).

Figure 1.1 Gartner's Magic Quadrants for IT Event Correlation and Analysis, December 2007

The gist of the Gartner report is that OpsMgr 2007 contains some major enhancements in comparison to the functionality in MOM 2005, with a focus in monitoring Windows environments. Gartner notes that the R2 release adds non-Windows management, but suggests it still has a way to go when managing non-Microsoft IT elements. This appears to be at least in part because Microsoft relies on third parties to provide management packs to monitor non-Microsoft applications. Microsoft provides the technology to manage Unix/Linux operating systems, but in terms of application monitoring chooses to focus on its own applications such as Exchange, SQL Server, Active Directory, and Internet Information Services. (See Chapter 2, "Unix/Linux Management: Cross Platform Extensions," for a discussion on Unix/Linux integration.)

System Center Operations Manager 2007 Unleashed, the predecessor to this book, was published in February 2008, just as Microsoft released OpsMgr 2007 Service Pack (SP) 1. Although that book tried to the best of its ability to cover all the improvements in the service pack by discussing enhancements as of the SP 1 Release Candidate (RC), Microsoft added several changes to the released version that were not in the RC. Therefore, this book takes up where the previous leaves off—with a summary of the SP 1 changes, an in-depth look at the R2 release, and a "deep dive" into some of the key capabilities of OpsMgr 2007 through Cumulative Update 2 (CU2) for R2.

This chapter highlights the changes to Operations Manager 2007, beginning with the release of SP 1.

Licensing Updates

There are two areas to be cognizant of regarding licensing and OpsMgr 2007 R2—licensing for the System Center Server Management Suite and licensing of cross platform applications. The next sections discuss this information.

Licensing Changes to the System Center Server Management Suite

In conjunction with the R2 release, Microsoft is changing licensing for the System Center Server Management Suite. Here are the products included in this suite:

System Center Operations Manager 2007

System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2

System Center Data Protection Manager 2007

System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008

System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 Management Server License

The July 2009 changes to Server Management Suite licensing include the following:

The System Center Server Management Suite Enterprise (SMSE) offering changes from an unlimited operating system environment to a four-system operating system environment, limited license, with a corresponding 20 percent price decrease.

A new suite offering System Center Server Management Suite Datacenter (SMSD) includes the same products as SMSE, but is licensed per processor and provides for managing an unlimited number of operating system environments.

OpsMgr 2007 will continue to use Standard and Enterprise Server management licenses (MLs). Here is when you do not need a ML:

Any Operating System Environments (OSEs) running instances of the server software on your licensed servers

Any OSEs in which no instances of software are running

System Center Data Protection Manager 2007

Any devices functioning only as network infrastructure devices (OSI Layer 3 or below)

Any devices for which you are exclusively performing out-of-band management

Microsoft provides the following links with more detailed information. You will want to check them for updates:

Licensing of Cross Platform Applications

The other area of consideration is whether cross-platform monitoring requires a Standard or Enterprise ML. According to Microsoft, if an application is monitored, the license required is Enterprise ML regardless if it is a Microsoft or non-Microsoft application. As an example, if you are just monitoring a Linux server, you need a Standard ML. If that Linux Server is running a Bridgeways MP for MySQL, you must purchase an Enterprise ML to monitor the application. This also means that should you create a monitor that monitors an application process or service (on any operating system), you would need to purchase an Enterprise ML to license it correctly.